Visibility of UNESCO Convention, Ongoing Ratification Challenges, on Agenda of December Intergovernmental Committee Session

The third ordinary session of the Intergovernmental Committee was held at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris from December 7-9, 2009. It was the first meeting of the Committee since the second phase of implementation of the Convention on the Diversity of Cultural Expressions was launched at the Conference of the Parties in June 2009.

The Committee discussed and approved proposed operational guidelines on measures intended to increase the visibility and the promotion of the Convention. They also launched work to develop operational guidelines for Articles 9 and 19, which focus on information-sharing and reporting processes among States and the UNESCO Secretariat regarding policies and measures taken to further diversity and the impact of these have had, and exchanges regarding best practices in this field.
Based on these exchanges, the Secretariat of the Convention will submit to the next meeting of the Committee preliminary drafts of operational guidelines for these two articles.

The Committee also adopted a strategy to encourage new ratifications, and approved a plan and schedule for launching the pilot phase of the International Fund for Cultural Diversity. So far, 104 States have ratified the Convention out of a total of 193 Member States of UNESCO. The strategy to foster new ratifications identifies two priority underrepresented regions, namely: Asia-Pacific and Arab States.

The International Federation of Coalitions for Cultural Diversity (IFCCD) was represented at this meeting of the Committee and addressed the main themes of the session. IFCCD President Rasmané Ouédraogo spoke on behalf of the Federation as well the United Cities and Local Governments, the NGO-UNESCO Liaison Committee, the International Music Council, the International Theatre Institute, the International Network for Cultural Diversity, Traditions for Tomorrow and the European Radio-Television Union.

Mr. Ouédraogo called on all Member States to contribute to the International Fund for Cultural Diversity on a recurring basis, noting that the number of contributing governments as well as the amount collected is so far clearly insufficient.
He also underscored the commitment of civil society to work towards urging more States to ratify the Convention, as well as increasing its visibility. He also recalled the duty incumbent on Member States to foster the active participation of civil society, as set out in Article 11—noting that this includes supporting civil society with the resources to meaningfully engage in this process.

Regarding articles 9 and 19 of the Convention, Mr. Ouédraogo stated that an open dialogue between the States and civil society was essential to effectively assessing measures taken by States to furthers cultural diversity and the exchange of best practices at the international level.

One noteworthy decision at the end of the December IGC session was the addition of an item to the agenda for its next meeting, which will take place in December of 2010: a stock-taking of the state of implementation and follow-up to the Convention by the Committee.

The IFCCD welcomes the addition of this agenda item. It opens the door to a discussion one important dimension of implementing the Convention that has not yet been addressed: the question of promoting the principles and objectives of the Convention in other international forums. This work is crucial to ensuring that the Convention becomes a touchstone when culture is discussed in other international forums—as was previously detailed in the October 2009 issue of Coalition Currents.

All the decisions made at the third session of the Committee, as well as the opening address by the new Director General of UNESCO, Mrs. Irina Bokova, in which she renews her commitment to the implementation of the Convention, are available online at the address below:
http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=39859&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html